Against Peter Singer

Princeton University's Ira W. DeCamp Professor of
Bioethics, Peter Singer, can be quoted on the wrong side (in my
view) of bestiality, infanticide, euthanasia and other
significant moral issues. Therefore, if he is coherent, I take
his views to be reductio ad absurda to his utilitarian
philosophy. In order to find out if he is coherent, I read his
book [1]. On Pages xii-xiv, he says he wrote this book to provide
access to his central ideas, in his own words, with sufficient
context to be understood. Therefore, I think it is fair to
compare passages in this book as being in context.

Religious Doctrine Must be Wrong?

Abortion appears to be one of the moral issues
where Singer can be accused of incoherence or bias. For example,
on Page 52, on the potential of human infants for morally
relevant characteristics, he writes:

"if we
count it we shall have to condemn abortion along with
experiments on infants, since the potential of the infant and
the fetus is the same."

Singer admits that this point is controversial,
but he finally dismisses it on Page 156. There he writes:

"The
belief that mere membership in our species, irrespective of
other characteristics, makes a great difference to the
wrongness of killing a being is a legacy of religious
doctrine that even those opposed to abortion hesitate to
bring into the debate."

I think Singer begs the question here. If
"mere membership" refers to a human patient in a
vegetative state, life support can be withdrawn, but the
potential in that case is zero. When there is some potential for
recovery, it matters greatly whether the patient is a human being
or a horse. Furthermore, the concurrence of established religions
in giving preference to members of our own species does not prove
that such preference is misplaced. Even an atheist like Singer
should have hesitated to bring religion into the debate.

It's Only Academic, Right?

On Page 324, Singer protests that

"Very
often what I am doing is following the implications of
various ethical views and getting students to think about
whether they accept these implications."

I agree that he should have academic freedom to
follow any premises to their logical conclusions. However, on
Page xx he muddies this defense with:

"I think
it is important not just to write and teach but to try to
make a difference in more immediate ways as well."

Furthermore, on Page 301, he adds that it is
sometimes morally right to disobey the law. The problem with this
is that Singer's opponents can plausibly make the same claim.
This actually happened, as he documents in his chapter "On
Being Silenced in Germany." Predictably, but not coherently,
Singer did not regard protests against his views on euthanasia as
being justified for people who hold those views to be morally
abhorrent. Instead, on Page 318, he complains about the

Reversing Singer's Appeal to Darwinism

"Why, for
example, if not because human beings are made in the image of
God, should the boundary of sacrosanct life match the
boundary of our species?"

I will try to answer this straightforwardly. But
first I want to note that, on Page 320, Singer continues with:

"Since
Darwin, at least, we've known that that's factually false,
and now we've got to draw the moral implications of
understanding that it's factually false."

This represents a small leap of faith on Singer's
part because he doesn't have direct knowledge about what happened
in biblical and pre-historic times. Now Singer's first premise,
stated back on page xv, was:

"1. Pain
is bad, and similar amounts of pain are equally bad, no
matter whose pain it might be."

My answer to Singer's challenge is to elevate
what he calls specieism to the alternate premise:

1.' Shortening
human lives is bad, and similar amounts of shortening are
equally bad, no matter whose life it might be.

I propose to argue for 1.' against Singer on
Darwinian grounds. That is, I believe my premise will work out
better for my genes than his premise, and it may even be optimal.
He concludes from his premise that some animals also have morally
relevant characteristics. While this may be a noble view in some
sense, I can't imagine any benefit flowing from it for any human
genes. Singer should find this argument hard to refute because
(as seen on page 320) Darwin's theory of evolution is revealed
truth for Singer. If Singer dismisses my premise, though, it will
show that he is not just interested in "following the
implications of various ethical views."

Reference

Peter Singer, Writings on an Ethical Life,
HarperCollins, New York (2000).